The Secret in the Headstone
by Rachel's Not Dead
Summary: When Winifred Foster died, she left a pair of clues in her headstone. Winnie Foster has a secret: she's still alive.


Jesse Tuck forced a smile on his face for the benefit of the girl with plaits in her hair. "Excuse me, miss. Do you know Winnie Foster?"

The girl with the braids raised her eyebrows at him and placed her hands on her hips. "No _duh," _the girl drawled. "She's in the woods. She's been there for years; she lives there. Where the petunias are."

A woman dressed in fine clothes approached the girl and but her dainty fingers on the girl's shoulders. "Margaret! Be polite." She smiled warmly at Jesse. "You're looking for Mrs. Foster, Jackson?" "Jesse." He corrected kindly, inwardly impatient. "Ah, Jesse. Yes, she's in there, as Margaret said. Follow the path--you'll find her sitting in a petunia garden."

"Thank you!" Jesse exclaimed loudly, breathless. The girl stuck her tongue out at him.

Jesse followed the path, as the woman had said, to the clearing where he had first met Winnie Foster. He scanned the field, not seeing her. Then: a stone. _No, God! Don't let it be…_Jesse's heart raced, leaping into his throat. "A gravestone," he said to himself, falling to his knees before the stone that had, in that small space of time, ruined him for the rest of eternity. Slowly, as if willing it to disappear, he ran his fingers over the engravings.

_Winifred Elizabeth Foster Jackson_

_1899—1999_

"Oh, dear God!" Jesse began to cry, burying his face in the petunias, his shoulders heaving with the weight of his sudden sadness. "Don't let her be dead, God! Please! Winnie, where are you? Where _are _you?" he cried again, refusing to believe the evidence in front of him. He reread the inscription, once, twice, hoping for the impossible. Then he saw it: a tiny shard of hope that pierced his heart. In tiny writing at the stone's bottom:

_Do not cry for me, I am only sleeping. In the woods, I can live forever. Never let go of me; I will be weightless by the waterfall when you find me. _

If there was any doubt in Jesse's mind that the message was directed at him, it vanished with what came next: a miniature depiction of the Eiffel Tower.

Jesse Tuck howled in triumph and punched the air. _Never let go of me; I will be weightless by the waterfall when you find me. _

Jesse followed his memory to the waterfall where he had swam with Winnie ninety years ago. _She's waited for me! _Next to the waterfall, as promised, was a cabin, small and boxy. He climbed the steps. The screen door was open, and he stepped inside. He looked around him at the life Winnie had lived for years, alone. The walls of the cabin were lined with book-laden shelves, and a squat table sat in the room's center. A spoon lie on a napkin, but other than that, the table was clear.

When he looked closer, leaning over the table, Jesse could see his own name carved into its surface in a crude, untrained hand. _So she is here, _he thought. _Still waiting. _"Where are you, Winnie?" he asked the empty room. "You here?"

He could hear a faint movement in the next room. It was a bedroom with no door, and someone had just been here. A Yankee Candle was lit in the corner, and the on the desk sat an opened book, its pages full of fingerprints. Winnie's beret teetered on the edge of the bed. "Winnie?" Jesse called again. "Winnie?"

There was fast, heavy breathing from the area behind a velvet curtain. Then a familiar voice. "Who are you?"

It was undoubtedly Winnie's voice. Jesse did not give an answer. "You waited for me," he breathed, stepping over and opening the curtain. "Winnie, I knew you would."

"Jesse?" He could see Winnie, standing in the same dress she had worn on the day they'd met. "Is it really you?" "It is," he said, his voice like a kid on Christmas Morning. "Take my hand, Winnie."

She came forward, and he hugged her to him. He could feel her tears on his shirt. "Oh, my sweet Winnie. Have you lived like this, alone here, all this time?"

She nodded against him.

"After all this time," she said through her tears, "I have no idea what to say."

"Shhh. It's okay. I'm here, Winnie, and I love you."

They laid back on Winnie's bed, and stayed there, frozen like a pair of lovers in a painting, until Winnie had finished crying. She fell asleep like that, leaning into him. He stroked her ebony hair, unable to sleep, and felt a rush of affection. "I love you, Winnie," he whispered. The rhythm of her breathing while asleep changed ever so slightly. "Thank you for waiting. Thank you so much."


End file.
